


To Break and Blossom

by novemberlite



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, BDSM, Chance Meetings, Crossdressing, Ex Sex, Happy Ending, Kink Exploration, Light Masochism, M/M, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-16
Updated: 2012-04-16
Packaged: 2017-11-03 18:41:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,222
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/384604
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/novemberlite/pseuds/novemberlite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arthur hasn't seen Merlin in eight months.</p><p> (additional warnings in tags)</p>
            </blockquote>





	To Break and Blossom

**Author's Note:**

> written for [kinkspiration round 2: crossdressing.](http://marguerite-26.livejournal.com/606189.html)
> 
> title cred to patrick wolf.

Arthur doesn’t know what the fuck he’s doing here. The club’s packed and full of smoke, the kind of seedy that’s probably contagious. He’s overdressed, sticking out like a sore thumb in his two-piece and sweating like it’s a fucking competition. His tie’s choking him and he’s being _stared_ at, by twinks young enough to still be in school and big, hulking men who look like they wouldn’t ask before bending him over.

After standing here for twenty minutes, carefully not-leaning against the filthy counter behind him, Arthur’s rapidly reaching the end of his rope. He curses and digs out his mobile, punches through his contacts until he finds the fucker who got him into this mess.

Chances are slim that Gawain will be sober enough to read, but Arthur’s not about to scream himself hoarse just to be heard over the shitty music. _I hope you werent fucking with me,_ he sends, feeling grim, _for your sake._ He doesn’t expect a reply, but his mobile buzzes plaintively a few seconds after: _wasnt. Honest. He ll be there_

 _When,_ Arthur wants to send back, impatience like a itch under his skin. He’s been thinking about this all day—all week—fuck, ever since Gawain came back from his wild night on the town and slurred out, _Arthur, you won’t believe who I saw._

He was right; Arthur didn’t believe it. But he wanted to.

“Hey, can I get you a table?” someone shouts, close enough that he can feel hot breath against the side of his neck. Arthur winces and turns to find one of those bloody _kids_ , red-faced and eager. “Show’s about to start!”

“No,” Arthur says, and softens it with a “thanks,” when the kid’s face falls.

“You sure?” he tries again, breathless. “Can’t get a good view of the stage from here. Hey—hey, let me get you a drink, you look like you need a drink—“

“I’m fine,” Arthur says, annoyance edging into his voice, but the kid’s not listening—too busy waving at someone in the crowd, pressing up against Arthur while he’s at it. His arse grinds back into Arthur’s crotch and his hair smells violently of strawberry; Arthur’s about to fuck polite and shove him out of the way when he sees who he’s beckoning.

“Hey—“

Merlin’s holding a tray full of drinks in front of him like a shield, face slack with the same shock that’s making Arthur buzz all over. He’s wearing some kind of stupid outfit, whatever passes as a uniform in this place—a swath of dark fabric around his throat, what looks like a jacket pulled tight over his shoulders and shadows around his eyes. People are moving between them and the strobe lights flicker an insistent headache; the kid’s still plastered to him and it’s hard to see and think—fuck, _breathe._

Merlin looks nothing like himself, but Arthur would know him anywhere.

“Hey, thanks!” The kid reaches out to grab two of whatever’s on the tray, turning back to Arthur with a sloppy grin. “You have to try this stuff, it’s amazing, it’s like—I don’t know! Hey, what is this?”

Merlin blinks as the kid waves the drink in front of his face. “What? Sorry—what?”

“What’s in this?”

Merlin’s eyes drag back to Arthur like he can’t fucking help himself. “Alcohol,” he says, sounding dazed, and Arthur laughs without meaning to, a loud bark of amusement that makes Merlin jump.

He says, “—Arthur,” as if he’s only just figured it out, and then his entire face goes tight and panicked, that look he gets right before he’s about to bolt. Arthur reaches for him but the kid’s in the way and all it takes is a quick side-step before Merlin’s lost in the crowd and Arthur’s pushing into it after him.

The crowd’s thick, a squirming mass of drunk, sweaty people, and Arthur gets through it by sheer force, elbowing people in the ribs and stepping on their feet. He keeps an eye on the back of Merlin’s head and covers ground when he stops to hand off his tray to another waiter—catches up to him just as he steps through a door tucked away behind the bar.

Arthur grabs the door before he can close it and shoves his way inside, ignoring Merlin’s hiss of protest. It’s pitch black until he fumbles for the light switch, and then bright enough to make his retinas burn. He blinks rapidly to get rid of the spots in his vision and makes out the inside of a supply closet, or something like it—shelves full of glasses and kitchen towels and beer mats—and Merlin—

Fuck, _Merlin._

Arthur’s breath catches somewhere in his throat, and stays caught. Merlin’s eyes are closed, squeezed shut like he can’t bear to look at him, and Arthur—Arthur can’t stop looking.

“Merlin,” he manages to get out, and, “what the fuck--is this,” even thought he can bloody well see it: the stockings and belt and a little black skirt; the flimsy lace of a fucking _bra_ stretching across his chest, under the jacket Arthur thought was uniform. 

“What are you doing here?” Merlin asks, hands twitching into fists and shoulders tensing, like he’s bracing for a fight. There’s anger in the twist of his mouth, barely masking the panic. It’s been eight months since he disappeared but it feels like Arthur saw him just yesterday: his stupid hair and tired eyes. 

His hair is still stupid, and his eyes are the same blue they’ve always been, but Arthur can’t tell if the blush is real or as painted on as the filthy red lipstick bruising his mouth.

“I was in the neighborhood,” Arthur hears himself say, as if from far away. He doesn’t remember thinking it, eyes dragging over Merlin like he’s stuck on repeat, down the length of his body like it’s something unknown and not like he’s mapped every inch of it with his hands, his mouth, so many times before. His cock is half-hard and confused: Merlin looks—strange, wrong in a way Arthur can’t put his finger on.

Unsettling. He always was. 

“Made a wrong turn somewhere?” Merlin lifts his arms as if to cross them over his chest, before thinking better of it and dropping them back to his sides. “Just—fuck off, Arthur. Before you catch something.”

“Is that what you do now? Get paid to catch?”

Merlin’s entire face goes ruddy. Real, Arthur thinks absently, after all. 

“Fuck off,” he says again, but his voice is shaky until he irons it out, lifting his chin up in a challenge. “None of your fucking business, is it?” 

No, Merlin stopped being his business a while ago, but Arthur’s never claimed to be good at letting go. He grabs Merlin’s arm as he tries to walk past, spins him around until they’re chest to chest and close enough he can smell cheap, tacky lipstick, see the messy clump of Merlin’s eyelashes when he blinks. The muscles under his palm are more defined than they used to be; Arthur pictures Merlin getting a good workout on the pole out there, men clamoring for his attention and shoving money at his crotch and feels a little sick with it, angry and turned-on in equal measure.

“Let go of me,” Merlin says, but he doesn’t move away. The tips of his ears are burning red, and his breath is hot against Arthur’s mouth, stings the sensitive skin of his upper lip. “Arthur—god, why are you _here._ ”

“I wanted to see you.” It doesn’t sound like a confession. Arthur is relieved. 

“You’ve seen me.” Merlin swallows, but the bob of his throat is hidden by the collar, thick and black like a brand. “Now you can go home and have your bloody freak-out while I go back to my job.” 

“I’m not—”

“I’m wearing knickers,” Merlin blurts. “All right? They’re not--I don’t have to wear them. I just, want to.” He gestures with his free hand, a weak, shaky wave. “All of this. I want to.” 

_Why,_ Arthur wants to ask, and _since when?_ But maybe he doesn’t want to hear the answer, because what comes out is: “I don’t care.”

Merlin laughs like it hurts him. “I’ve heard that before. Fuck you, Arthur, I’ve _heard that before._ ”

“This is different,” Arthur says, loud enough to drown out Merlin’s wretched amusement. “This isn’t—this isn’t about hurting you—”

“That hasn’t gone away,“ Merlin shouts. “I didn’t fucking replace one perversion with another! It’s still there, and you still can’t handle it. So go, Arthur. Just fucking—”

Arthur kisses him. He tastes like plastic and months apart and Arthur takes it all, hand on his jaw and mouth insistent. Merlin makes a sound that could be _don’t_ , but his fingers are digging into Arthur’s shoulders, tangled in his hair, pulling him close—closer, until they’re all wrapped up in each other and hurting for air. 

“You’re right,” Arthur says into the kiss. “I can’t handle it. You tell me to hit you again, you tell me to—to choke you, and I’ll lose it.” Merlin turns away and Arthur chases the wounded curve of his mouth. “I don’t know how to do this. But I fucking missed you, all right? I went crazy with missing you. So you tell me, yeah? Tell me what I’m supposed to do.”

“Don’t fuck around,” Merlin says, and he looks as young as he did the first time Arthur kissed him, wide-eyed and terrified. “I mean it, Arthur.”

“Don’t run,” Arthur says, “not from me,” and Merlin crumples, the sad smudge of his lipstick pressing up against Arthur’s chin and jaw and mouth. This kiss is something wild, half bite, and Arthur feels raw under the assault, cut open. Kissing Merlin has always been a little like fucking—intense and unforgiving—and Arthur pulls away to take in a breath, and another, while Merlin scrabbles at his clothes.

Merlin, he thinks wildly. This is Merlin, and they’re about to fuck in a fucking supply closet, and Arthur feels giddy with it. Merlin’s jacket lies discarded somewhere to their right and the bra looks so much more obscene without it, this thin strip of lace that hides nothing. Arthur doesn’t know what to do with it; it should look ridiculous—it does, it does, but Arthur can just make out the pink of Merlin’s nipples and it makes him a little dizzy; makes him reach out and thumb them through the lace.

Merlin makes a choked noise, one that turns into a whine when Arthur doesn’t pull back. He drags the fabric over their sensitive points and asks, “you wear this, too?” because it’s strange enough to be something Merlin does: not just on stage, but all day, wearing a bra under his over-sized t-shirts, walking around with this cheap lace roughing up his nipples. 

“I—Arthur,” Merlin says, and then, out of nowhere: “I serve drinks. I only—that’s all.”

Something clenches in Arthur’s chest, like being squeezed from the inside. “That’s not what I asked.”

“Yeah,” Merlin says, quiet and low, “it was.”

“Fuck, shut up. Just—” and Arthur _shuts_ him up, seals his mouth over a tiny nipple, over the lace. It’s scratchy against his tongue when he sucks, but Merlin’s stopped talking, reverted to making sounds like he’s dying, so Arthur sucks harder, deep hungry pulls that make Merlin clench a fist in his hair and sob, “please—please—” and then, like it’s torn from him, “fuck, bite me.” 

Arthur does, but even as Merlin bucks and shouts, he knows it’s not as hard as he wants it, and his insides tie themselves into knots. He’s going to ignore it, because it never leads to anywhere good, but Merlin’s already pulling him up and saying, “sorry,” and “sorry, I won’t—not this time, I won’t—”

“Okay,” Arthur says, “okay,” even though he’s not sure he is. Merlin kisses him hard and curls his hand around Arthur’s, tugs it back to the bra. 

“Take it off,” he says, and Arthur unhooks it with one hand because he’s a fucking pro and not the least bit frightened of what’s happening here, of Merlin’s expectations and his own conflicting desires. It slips off and Merlin shivers, but Arthur doesn’t let it fall—clenches it in his fist and wonders, if—if—

Merlin’s wrists are thin and bony, and squeezed tight they fit in one hand. Arthur avoids Merlin’s stare as he brings his arms behind his back and holds them there; asks, “Do you want me to?”

This time he sees Merlin’s swallow even through the collar. “Arthur. You don’t have to.”

He tightens his grip until the bones shift, until it hurts enough to make Merlin flush all the way down to his chest, back arched and wanting. Arthur asks again, voice even for all that his heart is somewhere in his throat, even though he knows the answer, because—he doesn’t know why. Just—because.

“Yes,” Merlin gives in, “fuck you, yes,” and Arthur ties the bra around his wrists, cinches it with shaking hands. Merlin’s panting, body this forced, sinuous curve, and he chokes out, “tighter,” and then bites his lip like he didn’t mean to, didn’t want to, just—couldn’t not. Arthur fixes his gaze on Merlin’s mouth as he pulls at the fabric, harder and harder until he’s afraid something will rip or break; focuses on the gleam of spit and lipstick dragged all over his chin because Merlin’s eyes will be glazed with pain and Arthur’s already hurting enough.

He looks different like this, something both helpless and violent in the line of his body, and Arthur’s cock throbs in his trousers, neglected, even as his insides go heavy with dread. This is nothing—he knows that, he’s seen what kinds of things people like Merlin get up to—but it feels like too much, like that fucking night months and months ago, when Merlin pulled him in and said, _put your hands around my throat,_ and now Arthur’s the one who can’t fucking breathe.

“Tell me,” he says, “please,” and pulls his hands away, backs up until there’s space between them, all cold air and indecision. 

“I’m okay,” Merlin says, sounding like he means it, like he needs Arthur to believe it, “I’m okay, Arthur, come here—” and he’s taking a stumbling step forward and nearly losing his balance, shoulders bunching against the strain. Arthur catches him around the waist, hands on warm skin and the cheap, thin fabric of his skirt and they slump to the floor together, cold tiles under their knees. 

Arthur’s trousers lie discarded somewhere to their right. His cock’s tenting his briefs, this dark spot growing as he leaks little pulses of precome, and Merlin’s eyeing it with his mouth open and gleaming wet and red, red, red.

“Wanna suck you,” he leans forward and says—slurs it, like he’s drunk on the thought—and Arthur’s cock jumps, needy, but his stomach curls in on itself because he can just see it: Merlin’s mouth stretched around his cock with his hands tied behind his back, eyes tight with pain and tears leaking out the corners, down his cheeks, these ugly steaks of mascara. He’d gag and choke and fucking love it, and Arthur—Arthur thinks he might vomit.

So he jerks away and says, _”no,”_ loud and sharp, “don’t,” and he’s begging. “Don’t.”

“Okay,” Merlin says instantly, “okay,” and he looks like he’s being broken in all the wrong ways, so Arthur swallows down the knot of panic in his throat and says, 

“I just want to—touch. Merlin. Can I, you have to tell me—”

“Yeah, yes,” he says, immediate, “yes, _come here_ ” and then Arthur’s shuffling forward and into his space, mouth to mouth until Merlin spreads his legs and Arthur fits a hand under his skirt the way he’s asking for. He finds hot, damp skin and more lace— _knickers_ —and goes short of breath at the feel, the way Merlin bucks into the first touch of his hand and fucking whines for it. 

Arthur’s filled with the sudden, irrepressible urge to see it—because it’s not enough to imagine the way the head of his cock would pop past the waistband and drool sticky strings of precome on his stomach, or the way his balls look, all fat and full and squeezed into place, aching from it. The skirt unzips and Merlin squirms as Arthur drags it down the length of his legs, until it catches against his high fucking heels. 

He makes a sound when Arthur tugs them off his feet, a short _unh_ , like what little air he had was punched out him; begins to pant when Arthur runs his hands over his stockinged legs, over his skinny calves and oddly shaped knees. He says, “please,” when Arthur pets the inside of his thighs, the skin there so soft it makes the edge of satin seem rough, “please—Arthur—” 

There’s a frill of lace at the top of the knickers, and more on the garter belt. When Arthur fits a hand against Merlin’s cock, fingers and thumb tucked right beneath his balls, his cock rubs against the lace, sensitive head catching on the fabric, and Merlin gasps, “fuck, o—oh,” as his slit flares open around another blot of precome. 

“Yeah?” Arthur asks, mindless, gripping him properly with a palm gone damp from sweat and the steady leak of Merlin’s cock. His heart is thundering in his chest and he feels like one big pulse of blood, the beat pounding so heavily in his temples and throat and cock that he’s not entirely aware of what he’s doing—doesn’t know he’s pulled the lace over the head of Merlin’s cock and is stroking, firm pressure and abrasion, until Merlin begins to twist and shout and say, “Arthur, Arthur, _it hurts._ ” 

He means _more,_ and Arthur knows it, so he fucking gives it to him; lets go of his apprehension and the sick tight desperate feeling in his gut and presses down harder, scrapes the lace over all that sensitive skin—hooks his own briefs beneath his balls with his other hand and knocks their cocks together and just _ruts._

Merlin’s mouth is open but he’s stopped making any noise, or maybe Arthur can’t hear it over his furious heartbeat. He looks wrecked, all lipstick smears and mascara trails and bright blue eyes, like he’s hurting so good he can’t fucking stand it, devastating and beautiful. His cock is a brand against Arthur’s skin and it feels like they’ve used up all the air in this tiny little room, every breath hauled in and sticking to his insides. Merlin’s face is a study in _almost there,_ almost—almost—almost, like the night that ended in Arthur shouting _no, fuck, how can you even ask—_ , disgusted and horrified, and Merlin walking out without a word. 

Arthur knows what he won’t ask for, sees it in every catch of breath and the tremble of his mouth against his own, and in the middle of it all Arthur thinks with startling clarity: fuck. Fuck, I love you. 

So he slaps Merlin across the face and watches him come.

**Author's Note:**

>  **complementary art:** [(be adored)](http://novemberlite.livejournal.com/34861.html) not at all sfw.


End file.
